How is it that a Kosovar youth, who has to watch his Muslim family be slaughtered by “Christian” Serbs, eventually becomes a Christian pastor? That obviously is not the work of Christian group-think (as much of Christianity can be) but instead the intervening hand of God. And that intervention would come a number of years later when Adhurim (Rimi) Xhemajli (pronounced juh my lee), at that point simply a discouraged agnostic, was studying philosophy at the University of Pristina.  There he found himself strangely intrigued by an American professor, Bill Burtness, teaching American history ... a person with such a bright spirit amidst the general darkness that seemed to mark the spirit of the times in Kosovo.

In his second year of study under professor Burtness, Rimi finally was bold enough to ask privately what it was that made the professor so different. Understanding clearly the question, Prof. Burtness answered simply, “Jesus Christ” ... not exactly the answer Rimi was expecting. That was the beginning of a huge spiritual journey for Rimi ... mixed with faithful appeals to Christ to show himself (which happened most miraculously) and which finally sent him off to Hawaii to study the matter further under the Youth with a Mission (YWAM) program. At this point Rimi became a fully committed Christian, ready to spread the Good News (which to him was Great News) of Jesus Christ ... for a number of years then in San Francisco among the street people.

Later, on his way back to Kosovo, God brought him to Pennsylvania, where I was able to recruit him to do a chapel service at the school where I was teaching. It was at that point that he met my daughter, Rachel, who herself was trying to figure things out spiritually. He told her that if she truly wanted to understand spiritual warfare, she should join him in Kosovo (where he was expecting an angry response to his Christian conversion from his family ... and also most likely where he would be spending the rest of his life). My wife Kathleen and I prayed over the matter ... both quickly concluding that going to Kosovo (which made little sense rationally) was what God’s plans were for Rachel.

And yes, spiritually the two became one and, after spending the better part of the year in Pristina, Rimi and Rachel returned to the States to get married and then head off to Hawaii to finish a master’s degree in theology at YWAM.

That was just the beginning of a most amazing ministry, Rimi getting an MDiv at Gordon-Conwell, serving as a Methodist pastor, getting a Ph.D. in theology at the University of Birmingham in England, publishing a work on the Second Great Awakening, and then starting up also here in Pennsylvania his own New Awakening Church.  And Rachel meanwhile is not only a Sunday School teacher and home-school mom, but a student (somewhat remotely) getting her master’s and now doctorate degree at Oxford (English lit) ... both also blessed deeply with a daughter and son of their own. God is so good!